It all started with Rahul Gandhi’s election speech on April 6, where he had mentioned the re-distribution as a sequel to the already promised caste census. In that moment, Gandhi probably got carried away and promised a “financial and institutional survey” to find out “who owns how much wealth” — ‘Hindustan Ka Dhan’— a term now muted in his speech available on Congress’ digital platforms. He did not stop there that day, but went ahead with a “krantikari” (revolutionary) step, in his own words, to “give you back what you deserve”.
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To put things in simple words, Rahul Gandhi promised an ultra-Left idea of wealth distribution in India that even communist China shuns. What followed was a no holds barred attack by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was well-received by the stock market. But PM Modi added a ‘minority’ twist to the discourse, leaving the Congress confused and on the back foot.
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If Gandhi tried to prevent the consolidation of Hindu votes by exploiting the caste fault lines, he sought to create another division — of haves and have-nots — through his “krantikari” wealth distribution pitch. But the BJP led by Modi has thrown the full toss by the Congress out of the boundary.
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From digging up old statements to launching fresh ones, the BJP had it served on platter. Here are five ways the BJP has made the Congress walk into its trap and trip.
UPA Gave More Unequal India
“We will do a caste census so that the backwards, SCs, STs, poor of general castes and minorities get to know how much they account for in the country. After that, we will do a financial and institutional survey to find who holds the country’s wealth, and what section holds it, and then we will undertake revolutionary work. Whatever is your right, we will work on giving you the same. Be it media, bureaucracy, or all institutions — we will create space for you there and give you your right,” Rahul Gandhi had said, setting a wild ultra-Left idea in motion.
Interestingly, the inequality in India that Gandhi wanted to abolish by giving people their “right” (in other words, money) deteriorated during the UPA years while it got better under the Modi regime until Covid-19 pandemic hit the country. This data, collated by Thomas Piketty, French Professor at Paris School of Economics, was also mentioned by member of Economic Advisory Council Shamika Ravi. The BJP has widely cited this data as a talking point in various TV debates since.
Modi’s ‘Minority’ Twist
Modi questioned if the Congress would re-distribute wealth amongst the Muslim community, linking it to a statement of former prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 where he spelt out who should be the first to have claim over the country’s resources.
Though Singh meant Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, women and children, and minorities in his 2006 speech, the BJP put out portions that read: “We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslims, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources.”
While the question of a minority doesn’t arise in this debate, the BJP made a cocktail of Singh’s 2006 speech and Congress’s 2024 manifesto that talked about ensuring “fair share” for the minorities.
It didn’t take much for the master orator Modi, who, in Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, warned that the Congress wanted to reduce the “SC-ST reservation and distribute it among the Muslims” when it was in power at the Centre while building a fear psychosis on Rahul’s wealth distribution promise. Modi warned the Congress is hatching a conspiracy to “snatch your property” and “distribute it among selected people”.
It’s enough for the Congress to trip over in its own trap that it would disintegrate a Hindu consolidation on caste lines and economic depravity.
Indian Overseas Congress chairman Sam Pitroda’s pitch to bring back inheritance tax in India in midst of the wealth distribution controversy has further complicated the matter for the Congress. He not only stressed for reintroducing such a law that was banished by Rajiv Gandhi but also backed Rahul Gandhi while saying Congress’s “redistribution of wealth in the interest of people”.
“In America, there is an inheritance tax. If one has $100 million worth of wealth and when he dies, he can only transfer probably 45% to his children, while 55% is grabbed by the government. That’s an interesting law. It says you in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair,” was Pitroda’s radical idea.
It didn’t take hours for PM Modi to rip him out while borrowing the tag line of Life India Insurance (LIC), “Congress ki loot — Zindagi ke saath bhi, Zindagi ke baad bhi”. He said in an election rally, “The property you have accumulated through your hard work will not be given to your children. The claws of Congress will snatch that too from you”.
P Chidambaram’s 2012 Comment
The BJP looked for a 2012 comment of then finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram made at Dr Raja J Chelliah Memorial Lecture organised by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP).
To deal with the issue of accumulation of wealth, Chidambaram had said the time has come for a debate on the imposition of inheritance tax. “Have we paid little attention to (the) accumulation of wealth in few hands? I am still hesitant to talk about inter-generational equity and therefore inheritance tax,” he had said.
While Jairam Ramesh tried to underplay Pitroda’s bold idea as his “personal view” and not that of Congress, this 2012 comment has given the BJP another chance to launch an attack on Congress.
BJP’s National Media Cell Chief Amit Malviya took to X and launched a scathing attack saying, “It was Chidambaram, who as finance minister, in 2012, proposed the horrendous idea of imposing Inheritance Tax. Sam Pitroda is only furthering the Congress argument and suggesting that it should be ‘redistributed’. Basically, taxed in life and death, too.”
‘Rajiv Gandhi Abolished Inheritance Tax for Himself’
If you thought the storm over the controversial inheritance tax was over, think again. While the BJP has been reminding Congress that it was Rajiv Gandhi’s government that abolished the tax in the first place, now it has accused it of doing it for vested interest.
Addressing a rally in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, Modi launched a scathing attack alleging, “The facts relating to inheritance tax are eye-opening…When former PM Indira Gandhi died, her children were going to get her property. But there was a rule earlier, that before the property goes to the children some part of it was taken by the government…To save the property so that it does not go to the government, the then PM Rajiv Gandhi scrapped the inheritance law…”
BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla tweeted attaching old newspaper clippings to back Modi’s claim to bolster the argument that Congress abolished the tax for the gain of the Gandhi family. “Under a finance bill that took effect April 1, all death duties in India have been abolished and no inheritance tax will be assessed on the Gandhi estate,” read the article tweeted by Poonawalla.
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